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A little more than 24 hours before kick-off, Hansi Flick spoke about how lucky he felt to have acquired Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United.
Barcelona’s manager was not remotely bothered that his stock had fallen so far at Old Trafford. Rashford, he said, was a forward he had long admired and now believed he could help improve.
In the 82nd minute, Rashford walked off wreathed in smiles before being wrapped in Flick’s heartfelt embrace. He had just scored two splendid goals that rendered Eddie Howe’s highly effective gameplan academic and silenced St James’ Park.
With Faustino Asprilla – the scorer of a hat-trick for Newcastle as Barcelona succumbed 3-2 on Tyneside in 1997 – having flown in from Colombia to help cheer his old team on, it was not supposed to be like this but not even Anthony Gordon’s 90th-minute consolation could upstage Rashford.
It was no night for slow coaches. Not with so many explosions of pace occurring all over the pitch and on the respective right wings in particular. While Raphinha’s rapid accelerations down that flank for Barcelona sometimes stretched England’s Tino Livramento to the limit, the sprinting powers of Newcastle’s Anthony Elanga often seemed utterly irresistible.
From one such advance, Elanga scorched past Gerard Martín before crossing for Gordon but Newcastle’s out-of-position centre-forward failed to make contact. Might Nick Woltemade have done better? Quite possibly but Newcastle’s £70m Germany striker began on the bench after Howe sensibly decided three games in a week might be beyond the 6ft 6in new boy at this stage.
Nonetheless, Howe could certainly have done with Woltemade’s sureness of touch as Harvey Barnes succeeded in dinking the ball over Joan García but wide of a post. On that occasion Barnes’s blushes were spared by a linesman’s offside flag but he would later be denied by the keeper when clean through on the counterattack. Yet if their finishing was found wanting, Newcastle refused to allow the La Liga champions to put their foot on the ball and assert any real semblance of midfield control. Howe had instructed his players to press hard and sometimes riskily high and it frequently succeeded in ruffling the visitors.
The danger was that if Newcastle, even momentarily lost concentration, Raphinha – a scorer on his last two visits here with Leeds – or Rashford would race away from them. Rashford looked razor sharp and the Manchester United loanee had home hearts in mouths after tricking Kieran Trippier before leaving the former England full-back trailing. Rashford ultimately shot wide but across in the technical area, Howe knew it represented a reprieve.
With Flick’s brightest and most precious talent, Lamine Yamal, back at home in Barcelona nursing his injured groin, opportunity beckoned for a Newcastle XI cleverly mixing booming long balls with bouts of slick, short passing. Yet as well as they did to keep the game evenly and intriguingly balanced, García was exposed to precious little danger.
The same could equally be said of the largely well-protected Nick Pope. Fabian Schär generally did such a good job of minding Barcelona’s much-decorated centre-forward that Robert Lewandowski resorted forlornly to demanding that the referee book the centre-half.
Schär’s partner, Dan Burn, did collect a yellow card on the brink of half-time after catching Jules Koundé’s ankle late. Some referees might have deemed it a red card and Flick certainly seemed to think it was.
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With Sandro Tonali once again an almost elemental, not to mention elegant force in central midfield, Flick’s side could not quite manage to join their attacking dots. Tonali invariably prompted Newcastle’s best moves but cross after cross flew into Barcelona’s box and, with no proper home striker on the pitch, came to nothing.
In contrast, Rashford is no stranger to scoring and the England forward revelled in jogging a few memories by connecting with Koundé’s fine left footed cross and flashing an unstoppable glancing header past Pope. A perfect fusion of power and accuracy, it was Rashford’s first goal for Barcelona and arrived after he cleverly manoeuvred himself clear of Schär.
It served as the signal for Howe to finally introduce Woltemade as part of a quadruple substitution also involving Jacob Murphy, Joe Willock and Malick Thiaw, but, before the newcomers could make a difference, Rashford struck again.
If his opener was good, his second was sublime. On the eve of the match, Flick had said that his shooting in training had been “unbelievable” and, after dodging Tonali this time, Rashford proved it courtesy of a 20-yard shot that singed the underside of the crossbar en route to the back of the net. He always enjoyed scoring against Newcastle for Manchester United and it seems switching to a Barça shirt has only sharpened his appetite on Tyneside.
Although Gordon finally proved he can score after all by polishing Murphy’s cross off at the far post, it was too little too late. Rashford had already done enough.
